BISBEE – Long before President Donald Trump promised to build a wall on the southwest border and make Mexico pay for it, Arizona lawmakers invited private donors to fund fencing for the state's 372-mile-long border with Mexico.

Cochise County was the sole bidder and has used the money for a "virtual fence."

'Hard evidence' a jury can see

When Sheriff Mark Dannels took office in 2014, he renamed a border enforcement unit and expanded its responsibilities. The Southeastern Arizona Border Regional Enforcement task force, or SABRE, is made up of five Cochise County deputies and two troopers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

"We don’t sit on the border, that’s not our job," Dannels said of the enforcement effort. "Our job is to work crimes with a nexus to the border. What I mean by that is whether it’s stolen vehicles, money laundering, whether it’s smuggling dope, breaking into homes. That’s what the team does, they track these bad guys down and catch them.”

Cochise County's 83 miles of border with Mexico features nearly every fence design currently in use along the border. Landing-mat fencing (right) is undergoing replacement in certain parts of the border.(Photo: Rafael Carranza/The Republic)

When the Legislature made the border security trust fund available, he bid for a remote camera system to complement Border Patrol's enforcement of Cochise County's 80 mile-long border with Mexico.

The initial funds, about $217,000, helped the SABRE unit install 50 BuckEye cameras along a 42-square-mile stretch of the San Pedro River Valley. The picturesque valley, located between the Huachuca and Mule Mountains, is popular with bird-watchers.

With hilly terrain and deep washes, it's also "a high-traffic narcotics smuggling area, and has been for years," said Sgt. Tim Williams, who leads the task force.

In January 2017, with some of the cameras up and running, deputies kicked off an operation along 42 square miles of the San Pedro River Valley, extending up to three miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The cameras have motion-activated sensors that, when triggered, send a picture to the sheriff's office. If they see a smuggler, the task force responds to the camera's location within minutes.

In the first 11 months of the operation, deputies seized 4,000 pounds of drugs, and arrested 37 smugglers. They also detained 353 unauthorized border crossers, Williams said. December data is pending because several investigations are still underway, he added.

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U.S. Custom and Border Protection agents stop thousands of pounds of narcotics from crossing the border. Smugglers have come up with unique and creative ways to evade detection, including sneaking drugs through air-powered cannons and hidden in food.
Wochit

But perhaps the biggest success stemming from their virtual border fence, according to Williams, is that it's resulted in a 100 percent prosecution rate against drug smugglers under state law.

"It's no longer a question of 'if it's happening.' We can actually prove it through the pictures now exactly what's going on," he said. "It's hard evidence that you can see, a jury can see it."

Expanding the program?

Given the program's early success, the Cochise County Sheriff's Office in January applied and received the remaining $55,000 from the Legislature's trust fund. They'll use the money to purchase additional cameras and equipment, Dannels said.

But even though that source of funding is gone, Dannels said they're looking into grants and donors to expand the virtual border fence program.

"We want to go farther, we want to go into Santa Cruz County, and actually get partners that are going to work with us and keep this moving all the way down the border,” he said.

Cochise County Det. Jacob Kartchner stands before the bollard-style fence west of Naco. He's regularly in plain clothes to avoid surveillance from cartel scouts on the Mexican side.(Photo: Rafael Carranza/The Republic)

But longtime Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said he doesn't see this type of program expanding into his jurisdiction, even if its success in Cochise County pushes smugglers into the areas he patrols.

“We got 1,200 plus Border Patrol agents with sensors, they got lights, they got all this tech... they got everything," Estrada said. "It would be like a drop in the bucket if we were to try to compete with Border Patrol. I don’t have the resources, I don’t have the personnel to be able to dive into illegal immigration and drugs. Our force is small.”

However, Rodolfo Karisch, the chief agent at Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which covers Cochise and Santa Cruz counties, said he doesn't view local law enforcement programs as competing with their work.

"We also don’t have all the resources in the world," Karisch said. "At the end of the day, border security, national security is responsibility of everyone. It’s not just the federal government."